FW: Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Tales

[Monte Davis]

JA>  How many dickheaded "serious" writers were contemporaneous to P K DicK?

I'll stay away from the morass of "genre vs. 'serious'", but just to
register a contrarian view: I've been re-shelving my library and -- somewhat
to my surprise -- found no fewer than 17 Dick paperbacks from the 60s and
early 70s, when I was gulping SF indiscriminately. He didn't loom that large
in my memories, and frankly I'm puzzled by the ascent of his reputation over
the last 10-15 years, culminating in the Library of America volume. 

it seems to me that what has happened is mostly the zeitgeist (e.g. Blade
Runner) becoming more receptive to his habitual themes of identity,
simulation, and overload of the "kipple" of pop/marketing culture -- and
thus anointing him as prescient. Another factor might be his drug use and
mental illness: Misunderstood Artists With Demons are always in demand, as
long as we don't have to deal with them in person

IMO it has to be that, because when I skimmed a few of those paperbacks, his
writing was as I remembered: workmanlike at best,  more often just clunky.
Outside of the atypically good Man in the High Castle,  I'm hard put to
remember a character or line of narrative or thought. So put me down as JDGI
-- just doesn't get it.